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DNS question

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by hannahlovesbananas

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Ok...i have a problem recieving email from an outside company. I can send email from my establishment to their establishment, but am unable to recieve mail from them. They gave me their public IP address, which i can do a tracert to, a ping to, and a nslookup to...but yet...we are unable to recieve mail from them. Our company uses Exchange 2000 on Windows 2000 server...I personally think that somehow their config is messed up.Last i heard, they used NT 4.O server, but that shouldn't matter should it??

Thanks :)

3 replies

by tomsal

...First things first -- are you the administrator for your company? Are you the one who configured YOUR company's email server?

(Also take note this post ASSUMES you can send and receive email fine from other companies, just not the one you are talking about. If you can't receive from ANY outside address than the problem actually lies with YOUR mail server configuration or your MX records for who ever hosts your DNS.)

If you are NOT...talk to your admin and ask him/her about the situation and in particular show him/her the exact email address of the company you are attempting to communicate with. Perhaps your company's admin has placed a block on the email address. When a block is placed it would fit into your scenario because you'dbe able to send to the address fine, but you wouldn't be able to receive anything.

by tomsal

I forget to mention, I don't know your experience with email server configuration, so if this sounds demeaning - its not meant to be, I am generalizing to make a point and not talking about you specifically. :)

Some people (particularly those folks who really aren't in IT but they are configuring a server anyway , because they, of everyone in the company, know the most about using a computer kind of deal) mistakenly think that SMTP and POP are related in operation. They are not. SMTP and POPare two separate and distinct protocols, one is for sending and one is for retrieving mail. You can have problems with one and not the other.

Now, that said, take note that some companies have separate smtp and pop machines (with separate addresses). If one of these machines fail than obviously that function (sending or receive mail) for that company will fail as well.

Just something to keep in mind.

by curlergirl

If you can receive mail from everyone else, then the problem is on THEIR end. It is their DNS server that provides name resolution on their end and routes the email to the appropriate domain/IP address. So, if you can't receive mail from them but can from everyone else, then the failure is most likely at their end, not yours.

The cause could be a lot of things - everything from the originator putting in the wrong email address to an incorrect DNS entry somewhere for your domain to a firewall or blacklist on their end that is preventing mail going through to your domain. They will have to troubleshoot this from their end, though. If it's a blacklist problem, find out what blacklist they are using and make sure you are removed from it "toot sweet". There are a few unscrupulous blacklisters out their that list domains for no apparent reason.

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